


magneticisque corporibus

by MasterofAllImagination



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Lighthouse Keepers, Don't copy to another site, First Time, M/M, Post-Canon, in which our protagonists succumb to domesticity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-13 10:28:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20172745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MasterofAllImagination/pseuds/MasterofAllImagination
Summary: In a lighthouse on the coast of England, James and Francis cross their last line.





	magneticisque corporibus

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to the [Fitzier Fanzine,](https://fitzier-fanzine.tumblr.com) in which you can find this fic + many more. [Digital orders](https://gumroad.com/l/captaincommander) open until September 6th! 
> 
> Many thanks to wildcard_47 for the timely beta <3

Francis was laughably sour of a morning. James delighted in attempting to interpret the various grunts he made when receiving his tea: low and curt, meaning _thank you_, or high and drawn-out, meaning _my back is aching most terribly this morning and I wish it wouldn’t._

“Shall I clean the lens today?” James would ask him at such times. The task involved several strenuous trips up and down the steps of the tower to refill the oil, change the wick, and polish the lens of the Fresnel reflector which warned ships away from the shallow coastline.

Seated stiffly across from him at the modest kitchen table, Francis said, “You’ve done it the past two days. I’m alright.”

“Perhaps I’ve decided I could use the exercise.” 

Francis appeared to be too absorbed in sipping his tea as though it were a medicinal to respond. He did, however, slide a tea-warmed hand across the table and squeeze James’s wrist in gratitude before drawing back to cradle his cup.

Such brotherly gestures had become commonplace between them in the Arctic. Though they had been beyond the icy grip of that place for nigh on three years, the gestures, too eloquent a vocabulary to abandon, remained in use; constantly evolving and acquiring new connotations—some of which James found far less useful than others.

With Francis’s unstudied touch not yet cool on his skin, James’s mind wandered back to a morning many months past—the same dawn breaking through the single window; the sea birds eking out their cries in similar cacophony. Francis had appeared in the kitchen that morning still in his dressing gown and nightshirt, the heavy velvet clinging to his body, clearly outlining his stomach and thighs. To make matters worse, the damned sash—tied sloppily in morning laziness—had kept slipping open.

James cleared his throat. Francis was fully dressed before him again. Leaning as far back as possible in the rickety wooden chair and hoping the burr in his voice could be excused by the hour, he declared, “My admiration for Jopson’s patience expands by the week. To have borne your ill-humour all those years, without complaint—no mean feat, that.”

Francis arched an eyebrow at James over the rim of his cup. “I must implore you to use smaller words, James, as anything longer than one or two syllables is murder on my back.”

“Expands by the minute, I should think,” James replied, and took a gulp of tea.

* * *

The pail of soap and brushes was absent from the lean-to when James went to collect it later that morning. Shaking his head, he made straight for the tower, finding Francis, as expected, already halfway up the narrow spiral steps. From the bottom, James cupped his hands around his mouth and called, “Really, Francis!”

There was a thud as booted feet came to rest upon a stair. “Two days in a row. I insist,” Francis echoed down.

Muttering to himself, James plodded up the stairs in pursuit. Three-fourths of the way to the top, he met Francis, who was patiently waiting, an arched eyebrow at the ready.

James subsided slightly. “I’ll have those at least,” he said, gesturing at the pail.

“Gracious of you, James.”

Francis gave it over with a knowing smile. His wrinkled brow relaxed.

“Terribly. Up you get.”

They were only a handful of steps from the hatch, and Francis seemed unbothered by the climb, until, with a sharp intake of breath, he suddenly darted a hand out to the wall. A hiss of pain escaped through Francis's teeth.

Carefully, James came to the step just below him, wary that he should stumble and fall. “All right?”

“Spasm. It’ll pass in a moment,” Francis gritted.

James exhaled sharply through his nose. He watched Francis shove an ungentle hand beneath his coat to knead the muscle of his lower back. For a moment, the only sound around them was the distant crash of the sea and Francis’s labored breathing.

Grasping for something to divert Francis's mind from his discomfort—even something so thin as a half-hearted quip—James needled, “Feeling your age, are we?”

Francis brandished the hand that had been braced against the wall. “And see if I’ll be as polite when _you’re_ fifty-three,” he returned.

“When I am become quite as decrepit as yourself, who then will carry the pail up the stairs?”

Francis's shoulders were hunched uncomfortably, but he managed a grin quite easily. “We shall have to carry it together.”

With the gap in his teeth on display and an unselfish fondness in his eyes, James in that moment found Francis impossibly charming, and could forgive him all obstinacy.

He pictured himself, as Francis had said, at fifty-three. Perhaps naively, the picture looked much the same as what greeted him in the looking-glass each morning: with provision made for some grey at the temples.

They had many good years yet left to them. Uncountable mornings spent waiting in companionable silence for the kettle to heat in the drafty kitchen. Evenings free of cultured society, but full of laughter. Growing old together seemed, to James, like an unbridled luxury—and yet there it was, before them both, ripe for the having.

“James?”

Startled, James looked up. Francis was staring down blankly from several steps above.

“Apologies. My—train of thought was diverted.”

Nodding, Francis said, “I see.” He dug his thumb into his spine without taking his eyes off James.

On impulse, James started forward, meaning to replace Francis’s hand with his own. He was certain that a second person could apply better leverage by taking a hold of his hip and—

James swayed in place on the step as his hand fell from the railing. He moved no farther. He had been an inch away from taking an unforgivable liberty, and in the draining rush, he saw those rosy visions of the future in a harsher light. All his remaining years by Francis’s side, yes—but at arm’s reach. Forever wondering what that sweet gap in Francis’s teeth would feel like beneath his tongue.

“James,” Francis said again.

James pulled himself from the middle distance for the second time and forced a brief smile. Had any of his thoughts shown on his face? He pressed his lips together, doing his best to affect a neutral mien. “Yes, I’m—yes, are you ready? Feeling alright?”

Something in Francis’s face became pinched, and not, James suspected, from his twinging back.

“We need more ammonia,” Francis said.

Without waiting for a response, he moved past James, twisting his torso so that he did not brush against so much as his coat hem as he descended the exceedingly narrow stairs.

There was plenty of ammonia already in the pail, but though James called out to Francis, the only reply he received was the distant clomp  
of boots.

* * *

Francis did not return, and James cleaned the lens himself. The repetitive swipe of a cloth across thousands of cut-glass prisms mired him deeply in thought.

They had already been three years in the tending of the lighthouse. In the beginning, their weeks were a blur of industry as they learned to account for their own self-sufficiency in tasks they would once have delegated to stewards or servants. At night, after a day of tutelage in the basic upkeep of the lighthouse from the decrepit widower they relieved, James and Francis wondered to themselves how the man sleeping a wall away had managed so much work on his own for so long.

"Necessity, I suppose," Francis had murmured, to which James hummed agreement in the dark. They were both well-acquainted with what a man was capable of when he needed to be.

That first winter, the wind squealed incessantly between gaps in the badly-caulked windows, creating drafts which made James long for nothing more than the comforting warmth of skin on skin. He contented himself instead with a mere brush of fingertips whenever Francis passed him a cup of warm milk.

“Francis,” he’d begun on one such dreary afternoon, looking up from sweeping to wipe his brow, “are you happy here?”

Francis had taken in the unyielding clouds outside the window before turning to James and muttering, quite thoughtfully, “Feels like a ship. Feels like being home again.”

Further discussion had seemed unnecessary—and likely to sear the back of one’s throat in the chill air.

James had grown to know Francis’s mind intimately since, on all matters, except the one which vexed him most: whether or not Francis could reach for him in anything other than friendship.

He’d lost the knack of measuring the possibilities of his future in the Arctic, where their scope had dwindled rather than expanded. But he measured them now. They looked disagreeably familiar. Hiding his nature from those around him had been a burden heavy enough to sour even the most idyllic life, and he would see his time together with Francis ended entirely before he saw it curdled.

* * *

Evening came, bringing a squall blown up from the south.

Francis carried the firewood in early. Not even the sight of Francis’s broad arse stretching his trousers as he crouched to kindle the stove could loosen the knot of fear that had taken up residence in James’s throat. He stirred the soup, though it didn’t need stirring; running asservations over and over in his mind and growing more and more dissatisfied with each iteration: _terribly fond_ sounded juvenile; _to me you are dearer than all the world_ far too overwrought.

James did not notice that Francis had crossed the sitting room until the man placed two fingers against the edge of the kitchen table, fisted the other hand behind his back, and cleared his throat.

With his shoulders squared and his chin jutting up, Francis was the very picture of discomfort. The knot in James’s throat thickened. He recalled the way Francis had brushed past him so cavalierly on the stairs, and wondered if he had not been so discreet as he’d supposed in keeping his longings concealed.

James put down the ladle. “There is something I wish to broach with you,” he said.

Francis tilted his head. “Myself, as well.”

“If you wouldn’t mind, then. Supper will keep.” James angled his chin towards the sitting room.

They had sat in the twin armchairs before the stove a thousand times, but never with so little comfort in the air between them. James rubbed a thumb back and forth across his knuckles. Watching the flames jump between the gaps in the grate, he began, “Francis—” and then stopped, chewing the inside of his cheek.

“Shall I speak first?”

“No,” James interjected. “No,” he repeated, softer. “I’ve been thinking of what you said, earlier. About the years we’ll spend here.”

Francis’s hand shifted from his knee to the arm of his chair and began to worry at the upholstery. “If I’ve been too forward—”

“You’ve been nothing of the sort.”

“I won’t have you stay here if that isn’t your desire,” Francis continued firmly. “Not on my behalf.”

Very quickly, James said, “I would like to stay. Very much.”

A flush rose in Francis’s ears.

The stove did not seem overwarm from where James sat. He supposed a stray draft must carry the heat more intensely to Francis’s corner.  
On the tail end of an exhale, Francis admitted, “I feared I presumed.”

Then Francis's intuition had not, after all, robbed him of the chance to admit the truth on his own terms. Now, its full expression fell to James alone. He took a deep breath and leaned forward.

“I realize, now, that you’ve been planning a way forward for us." James folded his hands between his knees. Unfolded. Re-folded. "You always have. But I have thought only of the present for a long time.”

The other man was quiet.

Even knowing what he risked by speaking, it was simple, in the end, for the words to trip from James's lips, as though borne by a swift current. “I have loved many things in my time, Francis, but none so much as the life I lead now. And the man I lead it with.”

Francis blinked.

The moment dragged, ugly and painful in its suspense.

“Loved,” Francis repeated.

James nodded.

Wetting his lips, Francis asked, “Loved—in what manner?”

Helplessly, his eyes traced Francis’s face. “A manner which would see me hanged, were I still a naval man.”

Francis closed his eyes, and the effect was as a sudden bank of clouds filling the sky on an otherwise clear day. James held his breath for so long his chest panged in protest.

“We are no longer naval men," Francis said, in a voice hardly above a whisper.

In the long moment it took for James to register the words over the roaring in his ears, Francis reached out and slid his fingers around James’s hand. It was a duplication of the gesture they had shared at breakfast. His thumb brushed softly over the bone of James’s wrist as one slippered foot crept along the carpet a scant few inches towards him.

Hours ago, James had thought it a brotherly touch, and he cursed himself, now, for not realizing that Francis’s gentle fingers were in fact a hesitant question, long gone unanswered.

Slowly, so as not to stretch this tender newness between them too taut, James rose. He placed his free hand on the arm of Francis’s chair and leaned over him. He bent his lips to Francis’s temple—to just above his eyebrow—to the side of his nose.

“Best tell me now if this isn’t what you want,” James breathed.

Francis tilted his head up and kissed him.

The elbow on which James had braced himself quavered. A hand shot out to steady him at his waist, and then Francis’s mouth parted slightly, revealing a seam of warmth. The kiss deepened.

It had been a long while, but James needed no reminding to savor the flesh of Francis’s lips dipping between his own, nor the slick heat of his tongue shooting straight to his groin. He allowed himself to cradle Francis’s jaw in his free hand—soft, pliable—and tilted him into an angle at which he could open his mouth wider and take his fill.

Francis groaned like a broken hinge. Insatiable, and wanting that sound again, James pushed forward; placing a thumb at the corner of Francis’s lips so that he could take his tongue into his mouth and suck firmly.

The strangled noise this drew from Francis would have worried him if not for the hands holding him in place by the back of his neck. Desperate fingers clenched in his hair, preventing James from pulling away an inch.

Messily, obscenely, James sucked his tongue again.

They were breathing heavily by the time James relinquished him. He let his head hang, wheezing faintly, and nearly choked as his eyes landed on the sight of Francis’s straining trousers, the shape of his hard cock clear beneath the wool.

“I—James,” Francis panted.

Carefully, James drew back and knelt between Francis’s legs. His hands came to rest on his thighs. They squeezed a brief warning before pressing into Francis’s erection. All the breath shuddered out of Francis, and his eyes flickered closed.

James rubbed him—not quite teasingly, but with no serious intent. He would like to be somewhere else, somewhere they could _lay down_, but Francis bent suddenly for another kiss, eager and hard. It lasted only a heartbeat before Francis was moaning—not in pleasure, this time, but in pain.

James drew away immediately. “Is something—”

Francis’s eyes were squeezed shut, and he was kneading his back.

“Ah.” Helplessly, James tipped forward, brow to Francis’s knee, and began to laugh. After a few breaths, Francis chuckled in soft counterpart.

When they had quieted, James stood, offering Francis a hand. He slung an arm across his lower back and took some of his weight. Pressed solid and warm from shoulder to flank, Francis’s nearness eased him like a long drink of water after working in the sun, or pulling on a perfectly tailored shirt fresh from the laundry.

Immediately, Francis nudged their steps towards his bedroom. James let himself be guided there, delicious threads of arousal creeping through his chest. “Your back,” he said at Francis’s ear.

“Damn my back,” Francis rumbled.

Francis’s bedroom was tidier than his own. James took off his sweater. He looked around for somewhere to put it, then, with a shrug, laid it across the dressing table, and started unbuttoning the cuffs of his sleeves.

Francis’s hands came down to still James’s, thumbs brushing over the tender skin of his forearm. “Not even so much as a by-your-leave?”

“Sorry,” James murmured. By degrees, he loosened his fingers and succumbed to Francis’s caress. “I’ve been thinking about this.”

Francis’s thumbs dug into him with a bit more pressure. “So have I.”

They broke apart to undress, but made very little real progress. With each item of clothing divested, their glances grew more hungry, until Francis stopped James with his shirt half-hanging from one shoulder and grabbed him by the waist for a kiss, which dragged on and grew sloppy.

“Francis,” James managed. Laughter rumbled within him. _“Francis,”_ he urged, plucking at the shirt he still wore. “Here, now.”

Eyes unfocused, Francis pulled back far enough to rake his eyes down James’s bare chest. He hummed in agreement. When they had at last shed their clothes entirely, abandoned where they’d fallen, Francis chivvied James toward the bed.

“Slowly,” Francis reminded.

James grinned as he helped Francis lie down without bothering his back. He lowered himself after him, nestling their legs together and burying his face in the crook of Francis’s neck. He inhaled. They were bare and connected from heel to head. It was enough to make him dizzy.

Francis’s hands came up to his hips, then flitted to the dip between abdomen and groin. James had never clothed himself in any fabric so soft as that touch. He dug one knee into the bed, gaining leverage so as to rub their groins together. They were the only living souls for miles, and there was no risk of being overheard like there was on a ship or in a flat. There was only Francis to hear James grunt, low and fervid, at the feeling of Francis's cock flush against James's.

A very devilish grin twisting his lips, Francis began to thrust experimentally beneath him. James’s voice shook on an exhaled oath. He struggled upright, moving his knees to straddle Francis’s waist.

Pushing his hair back and bracing himself, one hand against the bed, James groped behind himself for Francis’s cock. He rubbed the head against his ass, feeling himself throb in anticipation just from that. “Like this, Francis?” James asked.

After a moment, eyes dark, Francis nodded. “As long as you’re able.”

“It’s been some time, but—ah, _damn.” _

“What’s—?”

“Need something.” James leaned down and licked a short path across Francis’s collarbone. “I’ll be back.”

The old wooden floorboards were a cold shock to his feet as he stepped quickly into the kitchen. He rifled through the drawers, only half a mind on his task—the other half was in the bedroom, with Francis, who was naked and erect and waiting for him.

“Something suitable,” James muttered. He sifted fruitlessly through a basket, huffed with wordless impatience, and upended the entire thing on the table to search more quickly. _“Jesus._ Finally.”

When he saw what James had returned with, Francis smiled. “Oh. Right,” he murmured.

James slicked Francis’s cock and pushed himself onto it with a small effort. Any discomfort paled immediately to the visceral relief at having incontrovertible proof of Francis’s desire inside of him. James peeled away the hand that clung to his calf and kissed it, then sucked one finger completely into his mouth as he’d done earlier with Francis’s tongue, savoring the way Francis immediately began to tremble. He took his thumb next. A heady pulse thrummed beneath the skin.

“James.” Francis sounded as choked as James felt, and he shifted—impatient, James realized; with a jump of lust. “Yes. Please.”

For the first time, James drew himself up on Francis’s cock, and then down. And again. Down. Again. A rhythm fell into place, and the blunt pressure built steadily, encouraged by the teasing jolt of his own cock dancing against Francis’s stomach as he moved.

When James had him deepest, Francis made short, sharp, helpless sounds; and James lingered at that point, bouncing himself slightly. He wondered what kinds of sounds Francis would make if he were to swallow his swollen member until he felt him at the back of his throat. Would Francis thrash from just that single point of contact? Would he moan in the same way he did now, as James picked up his pace and rocked harder onto him?

But that was a question for later—Christ, to think that there would _be_ a later, and that he could have Francis again, and _again_. It was one of the most thrilling things he’d ever considered; though anything so complicated as considering was beyond him as soon as Francis began to buck beneath him. The erratic added pressure of Francis's girth hitting against the perfect spot within made James's cock leak freely.

Clearly approaching the edge of his limit, Francis’s hands fell from James’s thighs and bunched the sheets viciously, exposing the quavering line of his throat and jaw as he pushed his head back into the pillow. James fucked himself as slowly and evenly as his trembling muscles would allow, right up until Francis went rigid between his thighs, whining long and high with his climax.

The sight and sound nearly undid James on the spot. Wanting to spill before the dregs of Francis’s pleasure had faded, James worked his throbbing cock madly with his hand, suffused with bruising sweetness that curled up tight and then spun out of him in long, brutal spurts.

He collapsed on his forearms over Francis. His softening cock slipped from him. Francis kissed blindly at his jaw while James rearranged them—the bed was not so narrow as a berth, thankfully; though still only meant to hold a single man comfortably—and finally gave it up as a bad job, half-draping himself across Francis’s chest.

They were both warm and sticky with sweat. James’s legs and hips ached tenderly. It was all he could do to keep himself from drifting, and apparently too much even at that, because as soon as Francis began to card through the tangled mess of his hair, he drowsed.

Francis woke him some indeterminate time later. “We’ve abandoned our supper,” he said, as though breaking terrible news, “and if this storm gets any worse, one of us will need to check the light soon.”

They disentangled with the reluctance of honey parting from a spoon. Stooping to the floor, they pulled their drawers back on and recovered only enough clothing to keep from catching cold.

“Yours,” James murmured, handing back a shirt that was too large.

Francis passed him his trousers. “Yours,” he said.

James stopped. He lay the trousers over his arm and pulled Francis close. Into his ear, he said, “Yours.”

Francis splayed his fingers wide across James’s shoulder blade and nipped at his jaw.

Hand in hand, they returned to the kitchen, where the haphazard mess James had left spread across the table greeted them. There were bundles of herbs and small boxes of seasoning scattered in every direction—some had even ended up on the floor. But it was Francis, rather than James, who colored at the sight.

“I’ll get that, shall I?” James said.

Francis _mm-hm’d_ and drifted towards the soup pot.

Outside, the rain struck an unabating staccato against the windows and roof. Francis took up the ladle that James had abandoned and stirred methodically. Lightning flashed once or twice as he silently brought their dinner back up to a palatable warmth.

James was in the midst of hunting down a sachet of cloves when Francis’s voice broke the relative quiet.

“You’re so much to me, James,” he said.

James wrenched his head up.

Francis was staring down into the pot as if to burn a hole through it. "Practically everything. You should know that I—” His throat spasmed, and a muscle jumped in his cheek.

Rising from the table, James went to him. He lay a hand against the small of Francis’s back, and Francis heaved a great sigh at the contact, as if something within his chest had finally rattled itself free.

James said, “So do I. Immeasurably. To utter distraction.”

Hesitantly, he pressed a knuckle into the muscle of Francis’s back, just at the place which always seemed to give him the most trouble. At Francis’s low grunt, James repeated the motion more vigorously, working that spot until the skin grew hot beneath his shirt; then letting his ministrations roam farther afield.

Dinner was postponed for several more minutes.


End file.
